Marital Power Exemplified in Mrs. Packard's Trial, and Self-Defence from the Charge of Insanity Part 18

The appropriate sphere of woman being the home sphere, she should have a legal right here, secured to her by statute laws, so that in case the man who swore to protect his wife's rights here, perjures himself by an usurpation of her inalienable rights, she can have redress, and thus secure that protection in the _law_, which is denied her by her husband.

In short, woman needs legal protection _as a married woman_. She has a right to be a married woman, therefore she has a right to be protected _as a married woman_. If she cannot have protection as a married woman, it is not safe for her to marry; for my case demonstrates the fact, that the good conduct of the wife is no guarantee of protection to her; neither is the most promising developments of manhood, proof against depravity of nature, approximating very near to the point of "total depravity," and then woe to that wife and mother, who has no protection except that of a totally depraved man!

But, some may argue, that woman is already recognized in several of the States as an individual property owner, and as one who can do business on a capital of her own, independent of her husband. Yes, we do most gratefully acknowledge this as the day star of hope to us, that the tide is even now set in the right direction. But allow me to say, this does not reach the main point we are aiming to establish, which is, that woman should be a legal _partner_ in the family firm, not a mere appendage to it. This principle of separating the interests of the married pair is not wholesome nor salutary in its results. It tends towards an isolation of interests; whereas it is an identification of interests, which the marriage contract should form and cement. We want an equality of rights, so far as copartners are concerned. These property rights should be so identified as to command the mutual respect of partners, whose interests are one and the same. In short, the wife should be the junior partner, and law should recognize her as such, by protecting to her the rights of a junior partner, and her husband should be the legally const.i.tuted senior partner of the family firm. Then, and only till then, is she his companion on an equality, in legal standing, with her husband, and sharing with him the protection of that government, which she has done so much to sustain; which government is based on the great fundamental principle of G.o.d's government, namely, an equality of rights to all accountable moral agents.

Our government can never echo this heavenly principle, until it defends "equal rights," independent of s.e.x or color.

APPENDIX.

REV. SAMUEL WARE'S CERTIFICATE TO THE PUBLIC.

"This is to certify that the certificates which have appeared in public in relation to my daughter's sanity, were given upon the conviction that Mr.

Packard's representations respecting her condition were true, and were given wholly upon the authority of Mr. Packard's own statements. I do therefore certify that it is now my opinion that Mr. Packard has had no cause for treating my daughter Elizabeth as an insane person.

SAMUEL WARE.

_Attest_, OLIVE WARE, AUSTIN WARE.

SOUTH DEERFIELD, AUG. 21, 1866."

The reader should be informed that the above certificate was given after I had been a member of my father's family for six months, thus affording him ample opportunity to judge of my real condition, by his own personal observation, since Mr. Packard, and his co-conspirator, Dr. McFarland, the Superintendent of the Asylum, both insist upon it, that I am now in just the same condition in reference to my sanity, that I was when I was kidnapped and forced into my prison. Therefore, when my own dear father's eyes were fully opened to see the deception that had been employed to secure his influence in support of this cruel conspiracy, he felt conscience bound to give the above certificate in vindication of the truth. Another evidence of my Father's entire confidence in my sanity is found in the fact that about this time he re-wrote his will, and so changed it that, instead of now giving me my patrimony "in trust" as before, he has bestowed it upon me, his only daughter, in precisely the same manner, and upon equal terms every way with my two only brothers.

MRS. PACKARD'S ADDRESS TO THE ILLINOIS LEGISLATURE.

GENTLEMEN OF ILLINOIS GENERAL a.s.sEMBLY:

Thankful for the privilege granted me, I will simply state that I desire to explain my bill rather than defend it, since I am satisfied it needs no defense to secure its pa.s.sage by this gallant body of gentlemen.

I desire to make this public statement of some of the facts of my personal experience, relative to my incarceration in Jacksonville Insane Asylum, that you, the law-makers of this State, may see from the standpoint of my own individual wrongs, the legal liabilities to which all married women and infants have been exposed for the last sixteen years, to false imprisonments in Jacksonville Insane Asylum, under the act pa.s.sed in 1851, viz.:

"Married women and infants who, in the judgment of the Medical Superintendent," (meaning the Superintendent of Illinois State Hospital for the Insane,) "are evidently insane or distracted, may be entered or detained in the hospital, on the request of the husband of the woman or the guardian of the infant, _without_ the evidence of insanity required in other cases."

This act was nominally repealed in 1865; but, practically, is still existing, in retaining those who have been previously entered without evidence of insanity, and in receiving others, regardless of the law of '65, which demands a fair trial of all before commitment. In short, the present law is not in all cases enforced, but this unjust law is still in practical force in many instances.

Therefore, your pet.i.tioners, men of the first legal character and standing in Chicago, in asking for the repeal of this unjust law, not only ask for the enforcement of the new law by a penalty, but also that a jury trial may be forthwith extended to the unfortunate victims of this unjust law, who are now confined in Jacksonville Insane Asylum.

In detailing the practical working of this law in my case, I must rely upon your good sense to pardon the egotistical character of the following statement.

I am a native of Ma.s.sachusetts, the only daughter of an orthodox clergyman of the Congregational denomination, and the wife of a Congregational clergyman, who was preaching to a Presbyterian Church in Manteno, Kankakee Co., Ill., when this legal persecution commenced.

I have been educated a Calvinist, after the strictest sect, but as my reasoning faculties have been developed by a thorough, scientific education, I have been led, by the simple exercise of my own reason and common sense, to endorse theological views, in conflict with my educated belief and the creed of the church with which I am connected. In short, from my present standpoint, I cannot but believe that the doctrine of total depravity, (which is the great backbone of the Calvinistic system,) conflicts with the dictates of reason, common sense, and the Bible.

And, gentlemen, the only crime I have committed is to dare to be true to these, my honest convictions, and to give utterance to these views in a Bible cla.s.s in Manteno, at the special request of the teacher of that cla.s.s, and with the full and free consent of my husband.

But the popular endors.e.m.e.nt of these new views by the cla.s.s and the community generally, led my husband and his Calvinistic Church to fear, lest their Church creed would suffer serious detriment by this license of private judgment and free inquiry, and as these liberal views emanated from his own family, and he, (for reasons best known to himself,) declining to meet me on the open arena of argument and free discussion, chose, rather, to use this marital power which your laws license him to use, and as this unjust law permits, and got me imprisoned at Jacksonville Insane Asylum, without evidence of insanity, and without any trial, hoping, as he told me, that by this means he could destroy my moral influence, and thereby defend the cause of Christ; as he felt bound to do!

It was under these circ.u.mstances I was legally kidnapped, as your laws allow, and imprisoned three years at Jacksonville, simply for claiming a right to my own thoughts. The first intimation I had of this legal exposure, was by two men entering my room, on the 18th of June, 1860, and kidnapping me. Two of his Church-members, attended by Sheriff Burgess of Kankakee, took me up in their arms and carried me to the wagon, and thence to the cars, in spite of my lady-like protests, and regardless of all my entreaties for some sort of trial before imprisonment.

My husband replied, "I am doing as the laws of Illinois allow me to do--you have no protection in law but myself, and I am protecting you now; it is for your good I am doing this; I want to save your soul; you don't believe in total depravity; I want to make you right."

"Husband," said I, "have not I a right to my opinion?"

"Yes, you have a right to your opinions if you think right."

"But does not the const.i.tution defend the right of religious tolerance to all American citizens?"

"Yes, to all citizens it does defend this right, but you are not a citizen; while a married woman, you are a legal nonent.i.ty, without even a soul in law. In short, you are dead as to any legal existence, while a married woman, and therefore have no legal protection as a married woman."

Thus I learned my first lesson in that chapter of "common law," which denies to married woman a legal right to their own individuality or ident.i.ty.

Here I was taken from my little family of six children, while my babe was only eighteen months old, while in the faithful discharge of all my duties as wife and mother, having done all my own work for twenty-one years, besides educating our own children, and nearly fitting our oldest son for college; in perfect health and sound mind, and forced into an imprisonment of an indefinite length, without the mere form of a trial, and without any chance at self-defense.

True, my husband did even more than this "unjust law" demands, for he did get the certificates of two orthodox physicians that I was insane--like Henry Ward Beecher, and Horace Greeley, and Spurgeon, and three-fourths of the religious community; and, besides, he obtained the names of forty others, mostly his own Church members, who thus co-conspired to sustain their minister in this mode of defending the cause of Christ against the contagious influence of dangerous heresies and fatal errors.

The influence of the community outside of the Church was thrown into the opposite scale entirely; but their influence was overpowered by the majesty of the law, added to the dignity of the pulpit. I was conveyed by Sheriff Burgess, Deacon Dole and Mr. Packard to your State Hospital, in defiance of the indignant community who had a.s.sembled at the depot in large crowds to defend me. Dr. Simmington, the Methodist minister at Manteno, remarked to me, "Mrs. Packard, you will not be there long," and plainly intimated that, in his opinion, no man was fit for his position who would retain such an inmate as myself.

Dr. McFarland, of course, was obliged to receive me on this superabundant testimony that I was an insane person, although he apologized to me afterwards for receiving me at all, and for four months he treated me himself, and caused me to be treated, with all the respect of a hotel boarder. He even trusted me with the entire charge of a carriage load of insane patients, and the care of my own team, fourteen times; sometimes I would be absent nearly a half day on some pleasant excursion to the fair-grounds or cemetery, and he never expressed the least solicitude for our safe return. Indeed, he trusted me almost in every situation he would trust the matron.

But, at the expiration of this time, with no change whatever in my deportment, I forfeited all his good-will and favors, by presenting him a written reproof for his abuse of his patients, which was afterwards printed, wherein I told him I should expose him when I got out, unless he treated his patients with more justice.

He then removed me from the best ward to the worst, where were confined the most dangerous cla.s.s of patients, and instructed his attendants to treat me just as they did the maniacs, and be sure to keep me a close prisoner, and on no account to allow me to leave the ward, and compel me to sleep in a dormitory with from three to six crazy patients, where my life was exposed, both night as well as day, with no room of my own to flee to for safety from their insane flights and dangerous attacks.

I have been dragged around this ward by the hair of my head by the maniacs; I have received blows from them that almost killed me. My seat at the table was by the side of Mrs. Triplet, the most dangerous and violent patient in the whole ward, who almost invariably threatened to kill me every time I went to the table. I have had to dodge the knives and forks and tumblers and chairs which have been hurled in promiscuous profusion about my head, to avoid some fatal blow. I have begged and besought Dr.

McFarland to remove me to some place of safety, where my life would not be so exposed, only to see him turn, speechless, away from me! I have endured the scent and filth of a ward, from which my delicate, sensitive nature revolts in loathsome disgust, until I had had time to clean the whole ward with my own hands, before it could be a decent place for human beings to inhabit.

From this eighth ward I was not removed until I was discharged, two years and eight months from the day I was consigned to it. I did not set my foot upon the ground in the mean time, although, for the last part of my imprisonment there, Dr. McFarland exchanged some of the noisiest and most boisterous patients for a more quiet cla.s.s.

I have been threatened with the screen-room, and this threat has been accompanied with the flourish of a butcher knife over my head, for simply pa.s.sing a piece of johnny-cake through a crack under my door to a hungry patient, who was locked in her room to suffer starvation as her discipline for her insanity.

I have heard a fond and tender mother begging and pleading, for one whole night and part of a day, for one drink of cold water, but all in vain!

simply because she had annoyed her attendant, by crying to see her darling babe and dear little ones at home. I finally persuaded the matron, Mrs.

Waldo, to interpose, and give her a drink of water.

There was but one of all the employees at that Asylum whom the Dr. could influence to treat me, personally, like an insane person. This was Mrs. De La Hay. Besides threatening me with the screen-room, as I have stated, she threatened to jacket me for speaking at the table.

One day, after she had been treating her patients with great injustice and cruelty, I addressed Mrs. McKonkey, who sat next to me at the table, and in an undertone remarked, "I am thankful there is a recording angel present, noting what is going on in these wards;" when Mrs. De La Hay, overhearing my remark, exclaimed in a very angry tone, "Mrs. Packard, stop your voice! if, you speak another word at the table I shall put a straight jacket on you!"

Mrs. Lovel, one of the patients, replied, "Mrs. De La Hay, did you ever have a straight jacket on yourself?"

"No, my position protects me! but I would as soon put one on Mrs. Packard as any other patient, 'recording angel' or no 'recording angel,' and Dr.

McFarland will protect me in doing so, too!"